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LECTURE 20.10.26: Czech Traitors and the Meaning of Czech Treason
A talk by Mark Cornwall on Tuesday 20th October 2026 at 6.30pm in the Embassy of the Czech Republic, 26-30 Kensington Palace Gardens, London W8 4QY
‘Traitors’ are a very popular subject today, and the idea that ‘treason’ is lurking in society is an age-old concept. The talk will focus on how traitors have regularly appeared in modern Czech history since the 19th century. As a small nation with leaders constantly striving to establish a special identity or independence in central Europe, Czechs could often appear as traitors to those who saw them as disloyal or rebellious. Yet if many Czech traitors would be interpreted by the nation as heroes or liberators, others could be seen as simply evil because they betrayed the nation to Habsburg, Nazi or Communist oppressors. The talk will focus on three notorious phases of ‘Czech treason’: the Omladina trial of the 1890s; the treason of Czech leaders during the First World War; and the controversial case of Emanuel Moravec during the Nazi occupation. Each of them reveals something about Czech identity during years of national crisis. Each also shows that treason itself is a slippery concept, whose meaning is usually in dispute until one side finally wins the power struggle
Mark Cornwall is Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Southampton. He has researched and taught modern Czech history for over 30 years, and lived in Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s. He is currently researching the communist secret police (StB), and also writing a book about treason, including Czech traitors, in the late Habsburg Empire. In 2022 the Czech Academy of Sciences awarded Prof. Cornwall the 'Palacký Medal for Merit in the Historical Sciences' for his work on Czech history.
Price £15 including a glass of wine. To book via Eventbrite, please click here. To pay at the door please notify us by clicking here, or by email to
EVENT ORGANISED WITH THE COOPERATION OF THE EMBASSY OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC
All proceeds raised go towards the care and conservation of Czech heritage
Images supplied by author and via Creative Commons Wikimedia
